James Turrell’s latest light work is nothing less than a visual and spacial metamorphosis of the iconic spiral of the Guggenheim into a living set of Space Odyssey 2001 where the viewer is transcended up to the ovals above.

By blending the space into the art by his use of light, James Turrell (1943-present) equally absorbs the viewer, placing us immediately into the center of the installation. Aten Reign (2013) was especially designed for the rotunda of the Guggenheim. The inner space has been closed from the outer space by a soft white fabric along the full length of the spiraling gallery. The inner space has been carefully recreated and molded into a evenly shaped cone, while the original spiral effect of line and circle, has been projected onto the ceiling and flattened into a set of embedded oval hues. Around this inner cave of false shadows, runs the original spiral designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, but it has now become an empty row, a gallery of space itself, which has been revealed in its bare original beauty, and walking through it, gives you the feeling of walking through the exoskeleton of both Turrell’s and Wright’s parallel universes. Read more of this article »